Chris Trottier on Nostr: I bet you that when people overseas come to Canada, they get downright furious about ...

I bet you that when people overseas come to Canada, they get downright furious about the state of their beloved dishes.

Take kimchi, for instance, a sacred culinary icon in Korea, reduced to just another topping on our unstoppable poutine machine. It’s disheartening, to say the least.

I remember this one time, an elderly Korean cook named Ji-hoon visited our Great White North. Back in Seoul, he was a legend, whipping up kimchi that could make grown men weep with joy. He was a maestro of fermented cabbage and fiery spices. So, when he came across a local joint advertising “Kimchi Poutine,” his interest was piqued, and his culinary senses tingled with anticipation.

But boy, was he in for a shocker! Instead of a beautifully balanced fusion of flavors, he was served a Franken-dish. Fries drenched in gravy, cheese curds spilling over the edges, and to top it all off, a sacrilegious slathering of his beloved kimchi. The vibrant crunch, the tangy kick, the nuanced spice - all drowned out by the gooey onslaught of gravy and cheese.

You should have seen his face! It was like someone had just run over his childhood puppy. He sat there, stunned, silently mourning the loss of the dish’s integrity. He must have felt like a kimchi king dethroned by a poutine monster. I felt a pang of empathy for the old man.

There we were, in the heart of Canada, watching a dish that encapsulated centuries of Korean culture being bulldozed by our national obsession with poutine. It was a culinary tragedy in three acts: cheese, gravy, and the unnecessary addition of kimchi.

And I couldn’t help but think, is this what we’ve become? Poutine pioneers, leaving a trail of culinary destruction in our wake? If so, we need to rethink our priorities, my friends, before the world starts associating us with a series of ill-conceived poutine disasters. Kimchi deserves better, Ji-hoon deserved better, and quite frankly, so do we.